


Nightmares, love and trust.

by mrs_javert



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Assimilation, Assimilation tubules, F/F, Nightmares, The Borg, Trust, Voyager, past trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26912884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_javert/pseuds/mrs_javert
Summary: Seven’s intense nightmares are breaking Raffi’s heart.Raffi is desperate to help and to understand Seven’s past.With too much past trauma for Seven to put into words, Raffi places her life and trust in Seven’s hands as another means of communicating the past presents itself.Can Seven bring herself to go through with it, and will Raffi survive it?
Relationships: Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	1. Desperate means...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Troodster1972](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Troodster1972/gifts), [PetitePhilomath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetitePhilomath/gifts).



> This came was the result of a prompt discussed by myself and Troodster1972 in our nightly Voyager rewatch/chat sessions.
> 
> Our prompt was along the lines of “How can we get Seven to communicate all of her past, the traumas, assimilation, the Borg, Voyager, Icheb, Bjayzl” etc etc to Raffi? There is just so much to verbally explain from the train wreck that is poor Seven’s life.
> 
> And then we hit on an idea...
> 
> Troodster1972 went and wrote her take on it “Do you trust me?” and I got started on my take on it which is this.
> 
> There will be more chapters, chapter 1 is merely a warm up.  
> Keep with me please!

The previous night...  
02:15.

It had all too predictably started again, quietly at first.  
The eighth night in a row.  
Seven thrashed about in the bed.  
Her arms fought back to push Raffi away at every touch.  
Seven was strong and her sleeping form, possessed by the terror of her nightmares, shoved and kicked each time Raffi had attempted to hold her or calm her.  
“What have you...done to us?”, Seven cried, moving her desperate hands to her left eye as if to protect an implant that were no longer there.  
Unable to witness anymore Raffi made her move, grabbing Seven’s hands to pin them down while moving her full weight to pin down Seven’s struggling body.  
“Do not...want that life...”, Seven’s tormented voice came as she struggled and fought in her sleep.  
It took all of Raffi’s effort just to hold Seven still, or atleast as still as Raffi could.  
“You will return us...to the Collective”, Seven begged and pleaded as her breathing became more rapid.  
Raffi’s heart broke, broke again at the umpteenth time she had witnessed this and other scenarios played out in the sleeping mind of her damaged lover.  
It was too much.  
Shifting her weight to ensure Seven remained safe and unable to cause harm to herself, Raffi reached out to the bedside table.  
She picked up a loaded hypospray she had placed there for tonight just incase.  
It was her last shot of “yoD”,  
Unheard of in the Federation and illegal in the Klingon empire, “yoD” or “Shield” was a Klingon narcotic, a mind suppressant used by warriors who struggled to cope with the bloodcurdling images they witnessed in battle.  
The empire had banned it as being “Highly dishonourable” and believed that true Klingon warriors should instead relish recalling the bloodied images of slain enemies.  
Raffi had traded several Snake leaf plants for three shots of “yoD” about eighteen months ago with a shady Klingon ‘trader’ named K’voT whom she had come to know on the quiet.  
It was, as she recalled, “Good shit, strong as fuck”.  
She had taken it last Christmas day, and then once more on Gabe’s Birthday.  
Both were days she recalled becoming extremely distressed with panic filled anxiety and paranoia as her demons encroached into her mind and tempted her to harm herself with the glass of a smashed bottle.  
She took the “yoD” and both Christmas and Gabe’s birthday had passed her by as she lay blissfully unconscious and dreamless on the floor of her basic home.  
Her thoughts were broken when Seven kicked out, her knee catching Raffi forcefully in the stomach and winding her momentarily.  
Seven’s free hand reached again to her face, fighting again to save the long removed eyepiece while all the time pleading “No...”.  
Her breathing now neared a state of hyperventilating in the sheer panic of whatever it was she was reliving.  
Raffi looked down at Seven beneath her and readied the hypospray.  
“I’m so sorry babe...”.  
With that, Raffi lunged forward.  
Her hypospray made quick contact with Seven’s neck and Raffi administered the dose.  
The “yoD” took affect quickly.  
Seven’s movements and thrashing ceased and her body fell limp amongst the bed sheets.  
Her cries fell to silence and her head fell back into the soft pillow.  
Raffi knelt on the bed next to Seven’s now still form.  
She held a shaking hand over her mouth in shock and discomfort at the realisation of what she had just, with so little choice, had to do to her lover.  
“This can’t go on”, Raffi despaired.  
With that she moved aside and pulled the cover up, tucking it over Seven to ensure she was warm and unharmed.  
She would sit here all night and watch over her, she would ensure she was safe and cared for.  
It was 02.30 now. With a dose of “yoD”, she knew Seven would be out until evening at the very least.  
She would make something up to Rios. There were enough holograms to take Seven’s place today.  
Raffi leant over and brushed her fingers over Seven’s forehead, over her implant and then down her cheek before softly planting a kiss on Seven’s now peacefully sleeping lips.  
“I can’t lose you too”, a tear rolled from Raffi’s eye, “I can’t allow it, not you too”.

To be continued....


	2. Forgive me Raffi...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nanoprobes”  
> “Forgive me Raffi...”
> 
> Just how strong is the trust between Seven and Raffi?

The next night.  
03:15.

Raffi was warm.  
She lay on her back and shuffled her left arm slightly to reach her fingers into the blonde hair of Seven who lay next to her.  
Seven lay on her side, her head resting on Raffi’s shoulder.  
Seven’s right arm had long since burrowed under Raffi’s pillow while her left lay atop Raffi’s chest, the cold metal of her Borg augmented left hand being warmed slowly by the contact.  
Her body was smooth and pleasant to the touch and the curls of her hair held a welcome within which to freely snuggle against.  
The warm body was pleasing to touch and explore... atleast to the touch of the right hand.  
The right hand felt every sensation, every touch, felt warmth and felt chills.  
The left hand was riddled with Borg augmentation far too complex to be removed without causing lasting damage.  
Although the hand itself felt sensations, the metal prevented full contact and her fingertips, fully encased in metal, were blocked from having ever felt physical contact of any kind.  
Warmth was something she was still not fully used to.  
Even now after all these years the warmth of another being still felt unique, strange, almost as if it were something that was not intended for her.  
There had been others, Chakotay, Bjayzl, and nights beyond count spent by herself alone in the cold as a Fenris Ranger, or before even then nights alone in an alcove in the cold isolated and sometimes forgotten cargo bay onboard Voyager.  
But Raffi was different.  
Raffi was something else.  
Raffi was unique.  
Raffi was forgiving and gentle.  
Raffi didn’t judge.  
Raffi was something she had never encountered before.  
Raffi was Raffi.  
Raffi was Raffi, and Seven was Seven.  
The feelings for Raffi were unique.  
Raffi was an unknown quantity.  
Raffi was touchable, pleasurable and made Seven feel safe.  
And it worked both ways.  
Seven often wondered how Raffi could see beyond the surface?   
How Raffi’s caring nature could someone see beyond implants, beyond metal that had been drilled into and through bone?  
How she could brush her fingers so gently over implants and not cause Seven to flinch?  
Seven closed her eyes as she enjoyed the warmth and allowed her body to relax as Raffi’s fingers, the fingers of her nighttime protector, continued to gently stroke thier way through her hair.   
Nighttime.  
Nighttime had become unsettling for Seven over the last few weeks.  
The last few months had brought yet another wave of change to Sevens life, changes that yet again she had little or no choice in.  
Encountering Picard, Locutus himself, in person had been unexpected.  
In that life or death moment when she had materialised on La Sirena’s bridge and laid eyes on Picard... for the briefest of moments, and it was just moments, Seven saw him as Locutus and Locutus had spoken her designation, “I don’t believe it, Seven of Nine!”.   
Momentarily she had felt in awe.  
The Borg did not subscribe to legends yet Locutus was the closest the Collective ever had to one.  
Her momentary lapse, recognising Locutus before Picard had troubled her. Internally she tried to tried to blame it on the head injury she sustained during the battle with the Warbird, a huge and bloodied blow to the head which caused her to pass out just moments later.  
To recognise the Borg, Locutus, before recognising the individual, Picard, was disturbing even if it had been only a split second.  
In that moment of seeing the Borg before the person she recalled the many times people had recoiled upon seeing herself, of seeing the drone before the woman beneath.  
It was an unconscious reaction she was used to that, yet again, she had never experienced with the ever non-judgemental Raffi.   
Only a short while later had come the much anticipated reunion with Bjayzl.  
So many thoughts of Icheb had flowed through Seven’s mind prior to beaming down to Freecloud.  
Memories of his achievements, times shared together, of the times she wished him a sweet goodnight from her alcove on Voyager...and then of holding him as he begged her for the merciful death that she so painfully granted him.  
Watching Bjayzl burn, incinerating into oblivion, had been a necessary evil. A necessarily evil now burned into Seven’s perfect memory and preserved for all time.  
Seven shuffled slightly in her mental discomfort and moved her left arm to hold Raffi, trying hard to bury her thoughts but knowing she was failing.  
She knew the dreams, and then as the night wore on the nightmares would come again, just as they had night after night for the last few weeks.  
For someone who still prized order and structure there had simply been too much change of late, too many memories, too much unwelcome emotion, all becoming a conflicting jumble and coming out only at night.  
Even last week, when the day came and went, she told nobody amongst her new ‘family’ of friends, real actual friends, that it was her birthday.   
She had not even told Raffi.  
Yet that day too had thrown up memories just as it had every year, The Raven, her parents, the Borg drones reaching for her as she desperately hid, of being pulled screaming from her hiding place whilst crying out in sheer terror for her parents.   
The sheer horror of it, the sheer panic... and then order, and then Borg.  
All of this, all of this, had begun to assert itself in her mind as she slept over recent days, growing stronger with each jumbled nightmare.  
The nightly distress had become a routine.  
Sleeping with a low light on.   
Seven hated sleeping in darkness, always preferring to keep a small light glowing even just on its dimmest setting.  
Raffi hadn’t minded.  
Infact Raffi had reacted with a reassuring gentleness when Seven had revealed just how much she, a grown woman and former Borg, was afraid of the dark.  
Seven moved again, feeling her own heart rate increase slightly as she felt her anxiety begin to rise, knowing full well that a monster was waiting for her to close her eyes and succumb to sleep.  
She moved her head slightly, rubbing her cheek against Raffi’s shoulder.  
In response she felt Raffi’s hand move from her hair and gently grasp her shoulder.  
“Shhh...”, Raffi breathed with a calming ease, “I can feel you tensing already babe, there’s nothing to worry about...I’m here.”  
Seven bit her lip, watching as Raffi turned her head on the pillow to look softly at her with such a simple smile.  
In the low light Seven looked away.  
“Seven you can’t force yourself to stay awake”, Raffi dismissed and gave a little shake of her head.  
With a shuffle Raffi turned herself over onto her side. Retrieving her left arm she sat herself up slightly, leaning her chin on the base of her hand.  
“What am I gonna do with you hmm?”, Raffi reached up and gently traced her fingers in the softest manner across Seven’s forehead, stopping to trace a line around and then over Seven’s ocular implant with a tenderness she knew held a calming affect on this woman she both loved so much and pitied so dreadfully.  
“I’m so tired Raff...”, Seven revealed with reluctance, looking back up to finally allow eye contact in her vulnerable state.  
She hated vulnerability.  
Raffi pulled Seven towards her, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her into a secure and warm embrace.  
“Oh babe... if I only knew half of what you know, if I’d only seen half the things you’ve seen”, Raffi blinked as her own eyes moistened as she held Seven, “If I could take just half the memories, half the nightmares from you and release your pain I’d do it in a heartbeat”.  
“I can’t ask you to do that”, Seven replied, the fingers of her left hand now gently entwining themselves into Raffi’s curls.  
Raffi froze, pulling back slightly from Seven as if her own thought process had suddenly come to a crashing halt.  
She took hold of Sevens hand, removing it from her curls and looked Seven quizzically in the eyes as she held the Borg hand.  
“Wait, wait, wait... Whaddya mean you can ask me to do that? Do what?”.  
Seven rolled away onto her back and stared up at the dark deck heads above.  
“Nothing, I won’t place you in danger”, Seven’s voice became more firm.  
“No, no, no, no, no, no...”, Raffi sat up, moving herself to sit up alongside Seven and look down upon her, “If you’ve got some way I can share the pain, see what you’ve seen, hell even know more about you, I’ll take it”.  
“I will not do it”, Seven gave one single shake of her head.  
Raffi reached forward, gently placing her hand on Seven’s cheek and turning her face to look at her.  
“Seven, Babe, it kills me to my heart to watch you cry out these nights, watch your tears as you sleep, hold you tight as your body tries to fight off things that aren’t there”, Raffi pleaded, “if you know some way I can help you then hit me with it!”.  
Seven looked at Raffi, her features softening at the very thought of the offer Raffi was making.  
She flexed her left hand, folding and unfolding her metal lined fingers several times involuntarily as she thought.  
“You do that when you’re anxious”, Raffi nodded, “your hand I mean. Gets the jitters just like I used to when I’d been off the leaf for too long”.  
“You’ve seen so much shit too”, Seven conceded.  
“Mmm Hmm, only difference is I told you all mine”, Raffi adjusted her position to pull herself now fully up so she sat next to where Seven lay and pulled her knees up against her own chest, “as for yours, you keep yours all tightly locked away. I think that’s your problem babe”.  
Seven closed her eyes, breathing out as yet again her fingers flexed to betray the unease and fear the prospect of sleep still held.  
“Honey you need to let me help you”, Raffi reached down and gently stroked a finger over the metal starburst beneath Seven’s ear, “because babe, seriously, what I’m hearing you cry out at night is scaring me”.  
Seven opened her eyes, seemingly caught unawares by this new information.  
Slowly Seven sat up and her hair fell forwards obscuring most of her face.  
Raffi knew this method of Seven’s if a conversation became too uncomfortable, it saved her face from betraying her feelings, her weakness.  
Seven looked round, clearly biting her lip again before deciding to speak.  
“Raff...”, she began.  
Raffi nodded, gently but with encouragement, “Go on babe... It’s just me here, just Raffi, you know you can ask it...”  
Silence held out a few moments more, the only movement being Seven as she slowly placed her arm around Raffi’s waist.  
“Raffi... What did I say... in my sleep?”.  
Raffi placed her own arm warmly around Seven’s shoulders, a tiny smile of gratitude appearing briefly at the trust she felt Seven place in her to ask such a private question.  
“Thank you for trusting me...”, Raffi gave Seven’s shoulder a firm squeeze.  
She felt the gesture returned as Sevens thumb stroked the skin of her own waist.  
“Okay Honey... Listen, it wasn’t all coherent, and I guess it’ll mean more to you than me but...”.  
Raffi breathed in and waited momentarily before thinking back to list the more memorable utterances from Seven’s sleep...  
Gently Raffi began to speak, slowly and with utmost calm and caution to her voice as she recalled Seven’s unconscious distress...  
“This drone is small now”...  
“I’m so sorry... my child...”  
“I speak for the Borg...”  
“Pappa... Help me”.  
“Seven you cried out that Bjayzl was hurting you, hurting your implants...You cried for her to get off you.”  
“I will not comply...”  
“You cried out about being alone... so alone in some dark cargo bay... that the silence was deafening.”  
“You hoped to shape me in your own image...”  
“Invade their minds... suppress their identities...”  
“You mentioned a cake... six candles”.  
“Resistance is futile”.  
“Red... her favourite colour was red”.  
Raffi stopped and allowed a silence to fall as she felt Seven move her arm back from around her waist.  
She turned her head to observe Seven.  
The former drone now sat with her knees raised and her head bowed into her hands in stunned silence as she recognised each and every memory from Raffi’s descriptions.  
“Babe?”, Raffi turned, moving onto her knees to face Seven.  
She reached out, gently pulling Seven’s reluctant hands from her face.  
Seven sat, her exhausted eyes looked to Raffi as tears welled up within them.  
Raffi had never seen Seven’s tears before, and had never even known until now that Seven could produce tears.  
“I’m sorry”, Seven whispered.  
“Oh God, Babe!”, Raffi leant forward and pulled Seven into a hug, “you’ve got nothing to be sorry for! Nothing!”.  
The two held each other for some time, Seven trembling slightly at the past traumas and damage her sleeping mind had unknowingly revealed.  
Eventually Raffi gently pulled away, looking Seven over more than once in concern.  
“Babe, Honey, I’m begging you”, Raffi implored placing her hands together to emphasise her plea, “if you know how to share this then please do. I’ll do anything, anything at all that helps you, a problem shared and all that”.  
“I can’t”, Seven shook her head and wiped a tear with her Borg left hand.  
“Why?”, Raffi pleaded and took Seven’s right hand tightly into her own, “Babe... Raffi here’s tripped out on enough snake leaf over the years to blow even the Klingon empire’s mind, I just wanna understand... to share... to know what this universe has done to hurt you so goddamn fucking much”.  
“I cannot!”, this time Seven’s voice was raised, firmer, more recognisably defiant. It was more the strong Seven other people knew and saw.  
“Babe just tell me why”, Raffi pleaded, “There’s nothing you could show me that could change how I feel, I promise”.  
“It’s not that...”, Seven rubbed her own forehead, composing herself once again.  
“Then what?”, Raffi needed to know.  
Seven made a sniffle and wiped a tear again before looking Raffi herself all over and then into her dark eyes, “because I can’t bring myself to harm you”.  
“Harm me?”, Raffi was confused.  
“Yes”, Seven sighed.  
Seven raised herself to her knees now, kneeling to face Raffi and took both of Raffi’s hands into her own.  
“I trust you... I trust you implicitly Raffi. You’re the strongest woman I know but even I can’t ask this of you”.  
“Why though?”, Raffi leant more forward, closing the gap a little between herself and Seven.  
Seven squeezed her eyes shut for several moments in frustration. Frustration at ever having put Raffi in this position, frustration at her temptation to accept Raffi’s offer, and frustration at knowing what was involved.  
“Because to do so would be to violate you”, Seven’s lip quivered as she held back emotion.  
“Babe, Babe, Babe, woah, stop....”, Raffi held Seven’s hands tighter to ensure she fully engaged the xB’s attention, “This is where I’m supposed to make some joke isn’t it? I make some quip and say ‘you’ve already violated me’ (and I you) several times.... that way my humour diverts us from the subject at hand...but no babe, not this time, this is some deep, deep shit. Tell me babe, spell it out of you have to”.  
Seven paused, her attempt at deflecting Raffi defeated - Raffi had seen right through her.  
She removed her right hand from Raffi’s hold, leaving only her metal riddled left in Raffi’s possession.  
She flexed the hand slightly causing Raffi to open her grasp and look at the metal imprisoned hand within hers.  
Seven turned her hand over so her palm lay facing downwards in Raffi’s hands.  
“I can’t ask you to do this”, Seven again shook her head. Uncertainty was clear within her voice.  
“Tell me”, Raffi’s tone lowered as she took on an understanding that the Borg enhanced hand held the answer, “or show me”.  
After a moment of hesitation Seven complied.  
Raffi’s eyes widened and she involuntarily recoiled, startled, as two metallic Borg assimilation tubules emerged at rapid speed from within Sevens hand.  
“This is what I cannot ask you to do”.  
Raffi fell silent, thinking, observing. Her intelligence analyst mind disseminated and analysed this new information .  
She put together Seven’s words with the sight of the nightmarish Borg tubules she now looked upon.   
The tubules were a frightful reminder of the power Seven of Nine once held, may still hold, and yet Raffi knew both they and the augmented hand now belonged to the most compassionate, kind and gentle soul Raffi had ever known.  
Finally Raffi nodded slowly in understanding, more so to herself than to Seven as the answer fell into place.  
She raised her eyes to Seven, making sure to enclose Seven’s hand warmly within her own as the tubules retracted back into the concealment of the hand.  
Once again, no judgement, no disapproval, no revulsion, just love came from Seven’s lover.  
“Nanoprobes”, Raffi shrugged and made a continual nod which she punctuated with a brief grin, “That’s it isn’t it babe? You can use these babies to share your memories, your nightmares, with me... you just don’t wanna jack ‘em up into my neck”.  
Seven removed her augmented hand from Raffi’s grasp, resting it on her own lap and looking at it.  
“Raffi if I do this and get this wrong... the consequences if I miscalculate or lose focus... you could end up as.... as another of my.... my victims”, the xB’s voice held a severity that clearly evoked the danger involved.  
Calmly the darker woman gave a simple nod and even a small gentle smile.  
“Then there’s the memories...”, Seven pushed her blonde hair back, “There are things, events I’ve never fully reconciled, things that kill me inside a little more each time I remember”.  
“I understand”, Raffi continued to gently nod.  
Seven reluctantly gave a small laugh, “you can’t possibly understand”.  
She looked down...  
“Being severed so suddenly from the collective, never having heard silence, being chastised constantly onboard Voyager, Bjayzl’s...touch, searching so frantically for Icheb so sure I would find him, so sure he would be okay, that if I got there in time he would be safe, so wrong Raffi, so wrong all the fucking time!”.  
With a swift movement Raffi grabbed Sevens left hand and spun herself around to sit with her legs over the side of the bed and her feet now firmly on the floor.  
She tugged Seven nearer.  
“What are you doing?”.  
“Get behind me”, Raffi spoke, almost ordering Seven.  
“What?”, asked Seven cautiously.  
“Just do it babe”, Raffi instructed looking straight ahead in the low light, determination etched on her features.  
Seven moved herself, cautiously shuffling to a position kneeling up behind Raffi, her left hand still fully in the other woman’s grasp.  
“Raffi no”, Seven breathed with a sadness.  
Raffi raised Seven’s left hand and held it firm next to her own neck  
“Do it!”, Raffi’s voice held a strength, “Do it now babe! Do it because you need to! And do it because Seven Honey I love you, I trust you with my life!”.  
Raffi felt Seven’s breath on her shoulder. She felt the xB tremble and, if she were honest, herself a little too.  
“Do it, please”, Raffi whispered.  
Seven shifted position behind Raffi, raising herself up on her knees to make full body contact with Raffi.  
She placed her right arm around Raffi, just under her breasts to ensure she had a secure hold to support her body.  
Both women’s breathing increased in depth as did heart rates.  
Seven dipped her head and leant forward. Gently she placed a long and slow kiss on Raffi’s cheek before slowly withdrawing and allowing a moment to savour the feel of Raffi’s soft curls against her face.  
Raffi released her grip on Seven’s left hand and silently let her own drop to the bed.  
Seven increased her grip on Raffi, bracing her for what was about to come.  
“Forgive me Raffi”, Seven whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please send encouraging comments.  
> In this world of Covid it really is a boost.
> 
> Thanks again to Trudi! <3


	3. Voyager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven begins the dangerous process of sharing her past with Raffi...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as usual to my ‘Voyager gang’, Trudi and Paris x

Upon Seven’s mental command the Borg tubules leapt forward from Seven’s hand and pierced into Raffi’s neck with speed and efficiency.  
Raffi’s entire body jolted suddenly, instantly convulsing as if being electrocuted.  
Concentrating, Seven kept her iron grip. She held Raffi’s jerking body firm, holding her close against her with the strength the Borg had ‘gifted’ her with.  
While both her right arm and body attempted to hold Raffi still, Seven’s eyes remained unblinking and fixed on the tubules.  
With concentration she released the nanoprobes, all now flowing into Raffi and making thier way to attach themselves to her spinal chord to transmit the instructed information to her brain.  
Seven held firm, her focus and concentration intent on both Raffi’s safety and correctly directing the nanoprobes on thier way with absolutely no allowance for any deviation.  
A tear rolled down Seven’s cheek as she held Raffi yet there was nothing she could allow herself to do about it, every fibre of her entire being was focused elsewhere.  
The tear fell, dropping from her face and onto Raffi above her left breast.  
It went ignored as Seven’s Borg left hand remained firm, trembling slightly with Raffi’s involuntary shudders yet the tubules remained steady and impaled into thier...victim.  
With a pained intake of breath Raffi’s pulse and heart rate began to rise and her breathing increased in rapidity.  
She began to gasp desperately with every attempted breath and sweat began to form all over her body.  
In fear Seven increased her grip, mentally slowing the speed of the nanoprobes and gently reducing the flow to ease the shock that she knew was assaulting her soul mates neural pathways.  
“Shhhhh...”, she breathed into Raffi’s ear, “Shhhh... Shhhh...”.  
The former Borg concentrated her thoughts, recalibrating the flow rate of the nanoprobes with her mind and adjusted the flow to match, easing the rush of nanoprobes that ordinarily knew only to take over and assimilate.  
Raffi’s gasps eased.  
“What is the nature of your medical emergency, oh Holy Hell!!”, came a voice as the automatically triggered EMH shimmered into view upon detecting Raffi’s rapidly changing state.  
“COMPUTER DEACTIVATE EMH!”, Seven shouted. There was no messing about, her voice was clear, her order definite.  
There was to be no disturbance.  
The EMH vanished.  
Seven’s eyes remained fixed, not once had the blue eyes deviated from the insertion of her tubules.

As Seven held her firm and her body jolted and shook, Raffi’s mind felt a growing presence begin to loom amongst her own personality.  
It felt similar to another person entering an otherwise empty room.  
It was Seven, or atleast a part of Seven.  
Raffi’s vision blurred to nothing as her brain began to process. It struggled to understand as a complex flow of information began to enter and the nanoprobes began to write thier information into Raffi’s own memory.  
Seven’s memories began to pour into Raffi’s mind, suppressing Raffi’s own thoughts, Raffi’s own identity, and Raffi’s own individuality.  
Seven’s nanoprobes overpowered her lovers mind and engulfed it with visions, sounds and feelings.  
The information flooded in like a neural tsunami as memories assaulted all of Raffi’s senses simultaneously.  
Raffi no longer saw the blur of her lowly lit quarters or felt the strength of Seven supporting her shaking body.  
She suddenly felt the sensation, power and memory of being Borg.  
Voices, so many voices.  
The ambience of thousands, millions, billions of voices, a constant companion of ambient sound and knowledge.  
The feel of the alcove, a sense of peace and tranquility within it as it firmly held the Borg body and nurtured it with regeneration.  
Order, structure, calmness, safety, purpose, peace... a near tranquility of the mind.  
A flash, a spark, a shattering shock of pain and it was gone.  
New emotion, terror, absolute horror.  
The voices were gone, suddenly, so suddenly!  
Silence! What was silence?  
Silence was new.  
Silence was unknown.  
Silence was overwhelming.  
Revulsion.  
Revulsion upon realising her body had been altered.  
Stripped, her implants had been stripped!  
Pieces were missing, parts she needed, parts she relied on!  
Her eyepiece gone.  
The voices gone!  
The drone was now half blinded and alone, mutilated by the ship named Voyager.  
A Starfleet captain spoke, spoke words about individuality and yet she could not hear the words over the deafening sound of the silence pounding her mind!  
The brig.  
Imprisoned alone. Confined, alone.  
Panic setting in.  
The Starfleet captain again.  
She forces an identity, two words, a name, Annika Hansen.  
Refusal, raised voices, threats.  
A plea for the Borg!  
The information is irrelevant.  
The drone already has a designation, Seven of Nine!  
A photo, a little girl, blonde, 6 human years.  
Irrelevant!  
A surge of emotion.  
Loss, the loss of the others, the Collective, the Borg.  
Fear, the fear of being alone, of being just one.  
Terror at both what they had done to her, and what might become of her.  
Anger at this unwanted memory, this “Annika Hansen” the starship captain was forcing upon her.  
“Don’t want that life!”.  
Confusion.  
Hesitation.  
Deep breath, compose oneself.  
Perhaps there is truth?  
“Red... her favourite colour was red”.  
More changes, more surgery, exoplating removed.  
Clothing, hair, all new concepts.  
“Freed from the Borg”, or assimilated by Janeway?  
She was...uncertain.  
Her full eyesight restored... Was this compassion?  
Compassion was irrelevant?  
Assimilation into a new collective?  
A new collective...  
The beginnings of trust...  
Her anger subsiding as time passed.  
Perhaps Voyager was acceptable.  
Yet pain remains.  
Weekly “maintenance”.  
Crying out as clothing is peeled away and skin regeneration is monitored.  
So much pain.  
Then silence, left alone in the dim cargo bay.  
So alone for hours at a time, discarded until needed.  
The dreams of a Raven and the truth that presented.  
Assimilation, the end of childhood.  
Confusion remains, there is still mistrust.  
8472 returns.  
Janeway’s solution is flawed, lethal, Voyager must be protected.  
Her solution is correct. 8472 is beamed to the Hirogen.  
The lives of Voyager’s collective are saved.  
Yet Janeway punishes.  
Confined again, discarded to the cargo bay with only silence to haunt her.  
This collective is not yet understood, there is a lot to learn.  
Yet onboard she remains.  
Time passes...  
The words “drone”, and “Borg” often now replaced with “human”, “individual”, or simply just “Seven”.  
Rapports begin forming.  
Is this “friendship”?  
Janeway... Mentor? Teacher? Guide?  
The Doctor... Is this friendship? A confidant? “You are my sunshine”.  
Tom and Harry... Respect? Humour?  
The Talaxian... Support? Encouragement?  
B’elanna... A difficult mutual acceptance. Technical excellence.  
Tuvok... His understanding of emotional guidance, a tutor.  
Chakotay... Distrust and suspicion gradually gives way to a red dress and picnics.

“Voyager is my collective now”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do comment as seeing that little comment notification is such a bright little light in this ever increasingly mad world x


	4. Bjayzl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven continues to share her memories with Raffi.
> 
> It is time to share a chapter of the past that Seven looks back on with both anger and shame.
> 
> Bjayzl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Trudi and Paris, the gang!! X x

Bjayzl

Raffi breathed.  
In, out, in, out, each breath harsh and audible in the dark room.  
Each restless breath held within it a burden of panic, alarm and sheer anguish, as all emotions which had taken over Raffi occurred at once.  
Seven remained knelt behind Raffi, holding her firm where she sat on the edge of the bed entirely dependant on Seven’s safekeeping.  
With a tight grip she maintained the hold of her right arm around Raffi, supporting both the body and mind she had so selflessly surrendered to Seven just minutes earlier.  
Seven’s still eyes remained fixed on the entry point in Raffi’s neck where her Borg tubules remained sharply penetrating her neural pathways.  
While unmoving and concentrating, Seven held a full awareness of precisely which transferred memories had just hit her lover.... The terror of childhood, assimilation, Borg, freedom, Voyager, learning to trust....  
“Shhhh Raff... I’ve got you... It’s okay... You’re safe...”.  
Seven adjusted her grip on Raffi, feeling her cherished curls and pulling herself close enough to almost consider her position an embrace as she readied Raffi for the next flow of memories... a time Seven herself looked back on with shame.  
Bjayzl.

*******

Lies, all lies.  
You took perverse pleasure in luring a naive young woman firmly into your grasp.  
A young woman who had not yet learned to understand the concepts of lies or deception.  
A young woman who’s recent years had been all about learning to trust, to understand friendship.  
A young woman who had not yet learned that some individuals did not necessarily mean what they say.  
You silently planted thoughts and manipulated emotion with every glance of those dark Betazoid eyes.  
Even in sleep you sent me dreams of yourself, made me want, made me desire.  
You planted your deception like seeds.  
You crept your way closer and closer to me, masking your intentions with lies and compliments.  
You manipulated me into trusting you with expert precision.  
You began every evening with the offer of a strong drink.  
You said it was to relax me, that I was often tense.  
Of course I tasted the chemical laced within the liquid but you gave reassurance.  
You claimed that this was normal, that everyone did it.  
I knew no different than to simply accept your word and comply.  
You touched me gently and planted more thoughts.  
It was pleasurable.  
In turn I touched you and you found pleasure.  
You were inviting, confident and perhaps more than a little intoxicating.  
These nights were something new, warm, daring, lustful...  
You differed greatly from the gentleness of Chakotay’s soft touch.  
Why did I not see through it?  
See through the Betazoid web you had spun around me!  
Once more you laced my drink at night and I lay at your mercy again.  
Pain.  
Pain, again.  
Half intoxicated I remember you sat astride me holding a Ranger scanning device, you were probing my implants - you hurt me.  
You claimed it was mere curiosity, that I was in your words “exotic”.  
You were curious about me.  
You wanted to know more.  
More Betazoid lies.  
You asked many questions.  
I foolishly answered.  
How much Borg remained within me?  
You laced the question with kisses.  
Night after night you explored my body.  
You stopped at each implant to ask it’s purpose.  
You gave immense pleasure as a reward for each answer, putting me at ease.  
Would I choose to have my implants removed, you asked.  
I told you I could not, that an ex-Borg stripped of implants would die.  
“Oh...”, you merely said.  
You continued to caress my body, our intimacy now a regular release from the daily struggles and hard graft of the Fenris Rangers.  
Some days you even patched up wounds I acquired in our work, always ensuring my implants were safe and undamaged.  
I mistook this for caring.  
You reached in with your Betazoid senses relaxing my mind, my body, my soul.  
You whispered trust into my mind, you lowered my guard and my defences.  
You were slow, lacing your manipulations like a poison.  
We often lay together facing one another afterwards and your fingers trace the implant above my eye.  
You’re not looking at me though, you’re looking at my implant with your tired eyes.  
You’re feeling it as if to establish how it is fixed to me, I know, I can feel it.  
Your other hand feels my spine, your fingers probing to understand precisely where and how tritanium erupts through flesh.  
Perhaps this is simply your ‘thing’, perhaps Borg augmentation excites you?  
Perhaps your interest and fascination with my implants is innocent after all?  
Or do you see latinum where others see tritanium?  
Were there more like me? You asked with intimate touches.  
I answered with the truthfulness of a naive fool.  
Once more you gave pleasure as reward and to make up for your probing.  
I traced my fingers down your warm body.  
You did the same in reciprocation.  
Why did I not see the truth then?  
Because “Annika” was blinded by the deception of your every touch.  
And now with a smile so sweet you ask one more thing of me...  
You say you have to leave soon, but you will come back for me.  
You have to check on some arrangements because there is a place you want to take me. A place you have prepared in the Hypatia system. A place you cannot wait for me to see.  
But before all of this, you would like me to introduce you to Icheb...

I complied.  
I complied and now Icheb is dead.

Annika was a fool.  
Annika is dead to me now.

All that remains is Seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given that Seven’s relationship with Bjayzl was a great many years before the Picard series, I don’t think the Seven who was involved with Bjayzl is the streetwise Seven we see now.
> 
> I think it’s more likely she was still quite naive about the real world, particularly where people like Bjayzl are concerned, and perhaps with a substantial amount of the old Voyager Seven still present in as far as not understanding all aspects of society (especially the bad bits!)
> 
> It’s my feeling that Bjayzl saw this a mile off and essentially groomed Seven for Borg information (and sex!).
> 
> Yes I am also of the belief that Bjayzl is Betazoid and could therefore manipulate Seven mentally without her even knowing.
> 
> You’re a bad girl Bjayzl!!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, it makes it all worth while.


End file.
